Ideas

I sometimes get asked for a list of books or podcasts that I recommend. In honor of National Book Lovers Day (that's a real thing), I’ve compiled a list. I’ve included links to the books on Amazon or, even better, buy them at your local bookstore.

I’m grateful to the authors and producers who put these together. They have taught me so much. Also, big thanks to the many people that have recommended these to me over the years!

Hi, CI! is our monthly series featuring the best team we know - the Capacity Interactive team! You will learn more about the people who help arts organizations market smarter. This month, we’re featuring one of our Search Analysts, who is a talented musician, a dad joke connoisseur, and creates innovative search engine marketing copy that captures even the shortest attention spans.  

The American Alliance of Museums asked a group of museum CEOs, “What do you need to know (more) to strengthen your institution’s audience-building results?” Two responses summed up the general reactions: 1) “Behavioral patterns, decision-making prompts,” and 2) “What perceived value would attract prospective attendees?”

Perceived value is critical to understanding why people decide to act or not to act. The tagline of the communications strategy firm Maslansky + Partners says it all: “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.” To break through to cultural consumers, we have to speak to their truth, not our truth.

Campaigns with ticket-selling objectives receive a good amount of fanfare in the digital realm. But what if your goals aren’t directly tied to online ticket sales? Whether you’re looking to fill workshops or promote thematic offerings, digital campaigns are crucial members of your marketing ensemble.

We’ve all heard the cry of arts organizations in search of seemingly elusive new audiences. But at every organization for which I’ve worked­—organizations of all sizes and various disciplines—getting new audiences was never really the problem.

Despite what we tell ourselves about the need for new people, it’s getting those new buyers to come back that’s the challenge. In fact, the reigning statistic for orchestras in the U.S. is that 90% of first time attendees never return. That’s a lot of people not coming back, a lot of money on the table, and for other arts disciplines, the no-return rate is similar. The Orchestra X project (named after Google[X], the company’s experimental research arm) was launched to figure out why this is happening.

At CI we are always thinking about how we can help arts organizations use digital tools to help you reach your sales and marketing goals.

Over the years we have helped hundreds of organizations build out digital infrastructures to better understand how users are interacting on arts websites. We have become very good at capturing granular user behavior online. When a user interacts with your website, they are providing you with rich data about their interests and intent. But this data has always been anonymous in Google Analytics and in advertising platforms like Facebook and Google Adwords.

Ask the Industry features advice from arts marketers in their own words. We hope you can learn from them and it will spark new ideas for your organization.

This month, we’re asking, “What keeps you inspired as an arts marketer? 

PennyMaria Jackson (Apollo Theater), Sara Villagio (Carnegie Hall), and Sara Waugh (Marin Theatre Company) discuss their favorite apps, websites, and blogs to keep up with marketing trends, what they do to recharge outside of work, and how they keep their team (and themselves) motivated, even during the busiest times.  

Hi, CI! is our monthly series featuring the best team we know - the Capacity Interactive team! You will learn more about the people who help arts organizations market smarter. This month, we're featuring our Director of Business Development who is passionate about visual arts, a dedicated yogi, a self-proclaimed coffee snob, and a strategic fundraiser. 

In the past two years, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) has worked closely with their CI team to use digital to holistically change patron behavior around purchasing membership to their organization. Not only have memberships grown across the board, now online purchases are a key mode of membership sales.

They’ve done this through long-term campaigns that cultivate a healthy membership pipeline. Rather than short, one-off campaigns centered around immediate membership wins, MFAH’s approach has led to sustained growth and strong ROIs. Read on to learn how!

I founded my video production company when I realized that all of my college dance footage was fuzzy, far away and completely unusable. There was clearly a need for better quality performance video, and I wanted to be the one to lead the charge.

Now, my company, Nel Shelby Productions, creates marketing videos and fundraising videos and on-camera interviews and films and documentaries. Still, the biggest part of what I do is document performance.